Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Brain]

I don't know how reliable this twitter account is but:

Visegrád 24
@visegrad24
BREAKING:

The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.

That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?

That would be a significant walking back on "demilitarization", if true.

Also, absolutely no way that Putin is fine with Ukraine eventually joining the EU.

Sweden is not a neutral country in the style of Austria. We are non-allied and there's a difference. If Ukraine gets neutrality on Swedish terms they can join NATO anytime, just like Sweden.

Austria's neutrality is a part of their constitution and if Ukraine gets neutrality their style then Putin gets what he wants.

Yeah, even a Ukraine which is like Sweden plus a "not allowed to join NATO" clause will be firmly in the NATO sphere.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - Shashank Joshi of the Economist has pointed out that with Sweden at least it was definitely a form of armed neutrality. Austria and Sweden now work closely with NATO, are in the EU, buy lots of arms from EU and NATO partners etc. His read is that what Russia actually means/wants is something more along the lines of post-Versailles Germany.

[Legbiter]

If Ukraine is left outside of Russian control, direct or indirect, without major territorial concessions, that will achieve exactly zero of Putin's objectives. Also, any neutrality pledge will be extremely easy to be utilised by Russia as a future cause for war, using the same kind of dreamed-up BS excuses they have been using even without a conveniently  abusable Ukrainian pledge being documented.

In other words, a more or less white peace with a pledge of neutrality would be more like a truce, probably no longer than a couple of years.

Yeah. Also all territory taken by Russia around the Black Sea coast will probably be retained by Russia unless they're driven out. That's why they seem so hellbent on at least taking Mariupol.

[Syt]

I don't know how reliable this twitter account is but:

Visegrád 24
@visegrad24
BREAKING:

The Kremlin has stated that an Austrian/Swedish neutrality model for Ukrainian, preserving their own Army but without foreign military bases, could be seen as a compromise - Interfax.

That must mean that Russia is fine with EU membership, right?

That would be a significant walking back on "demilitarization", if true.

Also, absolutely no way that Putin is fine with Ukraine eventually joining the EU.

Best comment I've seen: "Austrian model? So with a bunch of ex-politicians who work for Russian companies?"

I think Austria used a window of opportunity for joining EU. The post-WW2 contract stipulated that besides "everlasting neutrality" it was forbidden from forming any kind of union with Germany, including economic unions. The USSR (and to some extent the UK) pointed to this clause to prevent Austria from joining the EEC. They filed their application in 1989 when the political situation had changed.

[Berkut]

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THe Ukraine becoming more Western is not an existential threat to Russia.

And even the Russians are perfectly aware of that.

Just because they say they believe something is true, doesn't mean they actually believe it to be true.

I feel like we had this argument once already....

they don't believe Ukraine is led by nazis either.  But there's still a war going on.  In the end, what they say, what they really believe, it's irrelevent.  

My point is that they don't believe it, yet there are still lots of people still arguing about policy as if they accept that they DO in fact believe it.

And it is extremely relevant in how we evaluate our stance and our policies. If they did believe it to be true, then when we engage them, we have to consider that in how we negotiate, even if we don't think it is true. You have to understand the people you are negotiating with, even if that negotiation is through violent means. 

If Russia actually believed that Ukraine joining NATO was a direct threat to their national sovereignty, that would be a significant factor in any consideration for how to deal with them diplomatically. Even if it isn't true, but they honestly believe it to be true. It is a valid position of grievance for them to occupy.

But it we know it to not be true AND we know that they don't believe it either, then it becomes much more clear that their objection has other grounds. If we know NATO is defensive, and we are pretty sure THEY know NATO is defensive as well, then their objections become much more ominous, and we should be a lot more alarmed at things like Russia amassing troops on their border. 

You say this is irrelevant, and yet this is *exactly* what happened, and a bunch of Russian apologists or useful idiots have spent the last decade watching Putin talk about how Ukraine is not a real country, invaded it outright, fermented violent revolt in its eastern regions, then finally ammases a giant army on its borders. US intelligence said over and over and over again that they were going to invade. And those some people wrung their hands and talked about 1812 and wondered whatever was Putin going to do? 

Putin did not invade Ukraine because the US and the West was too agressive with Ukraine. He invaded Ukraine because the West was too weak, and he thought he could get away with it. And part of that was the successful bullshit campaign he has been spouting about how threatened Russia is by NATO expansion, and the acceptance of that as a valid point by many on both the left and the right in the West. 

This stuff does matter. It matters a lot.

[Berkut]

I think it's a best guess Jacob--most of us assumed the Russian forces on paper were a lot more competent than they have been. A lot of the forces Russia could still bring in are the equivalent of Russian National Guard, which are lower quality than some of the troops they are using now. It seems like there may be a serious dearth of quality soldiers in the Russian army, and nowhere near the quantity situation the Soviets ran to make up for it (and actually the Soviets had a bigger core of professional soldiers.)

I think you also have to consider that even in the worst of times, the Soviet Army had poorly trained troops, yes, but their morale was generally not terrible. They believed they were fighting for the "good guys", even if they were conscripts.

They were known to fight tenaciously, if often unimaginative. Their leadership was often poor to moderate, but again, motivated. Discipline was brutal but seen as fair under the circumstances.

I don't think any of that is true now. The lack of quality in the Russian military today is of an entirely different kind then it was in WW2 or the Cold War. 

And now they've lost the last thing that can shore up shitty morale in troops fighting for a cause they don't believe in - the knowledge that they will at least win and it will be over if they can just get through the next few days/weeks. 

The Russian Army is fucked. They have lost this war. Shoving in more troops will not fix the problem, unless he has a half a million more sitting around somewhere.

Again, I don't think this is as good of news as we might hope. I am really fucking worried what Putin will do when he has internalized this and starts looking for options.

[Berkut]

The other question is the quality of this remaining strength - is it more or less the same as what we've seen?  Is it better (the theory that Putin's been holding back "the real army" has been suggested by some folks, though I'm not sure I buy it), or is it worse because Putin led with his best troops?

The airborne are supposed to be some of their best troops and they've been committed.  Some of the currently active units have the Guards designation, which used to mean something in terms of quality.

My cousin is in the French paratroopers and he tells me it's an open secret how shit the VdV really are. They apparently have an outsize influence in Russia itself and their PR is good, but in terms of operational efficiency they're a laughingstock.

Nothing I've seen so far has proved that analysis wrong. They got wiped out at Hostomel airport apparently.

That cannot be right. Have you seen that video of them negotiating those rusty playground mazes? They are bad fucking ass!

[OttoVonBismarck]

In fairness I think it is a little hard to say NATO is a truly defensive alliance. Sure, the formal mechanism of getting all the members to join a war through article 5 requires a defensive arrangement, but NATO has been a vehicle to conduct several offensive wars. For example, NATO bombed Yugoslavia(Serbia) in 1999 as part of the Kosovo War, when there was no real self-defense argument for it. Now, I think it's also obvious that Russia is no Serbia, and knows that NATO would not ever conduct such an operation against it.

[CountDeMoney]

Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress just now--

[mongers]

Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress just now--

Who was sitting in that chair?

[CountDeMoney]

Who was sitting in that chair?

Reginald Q. Stenotype.  Who the fuck cares

[The Brain]

More importantly, why did they shoot this vertically?

[mongers]

More importantly, why did they shoot this vertically?

Yeah, just show people haven't been able to properly use their smartphones since the beginning.

[Admiral Yi]

My cousin is in the French paratroopers and he tells me it's an open secret how shit the VdV really are. They apparently have an outsize influence in Russia itself and their PR is good, but in terms of operational efficiency they're a laughingstock.

Nothing I've seen so far has proved that analysis wrong. They got wiped out at Hostomel airport apparently.

This may all very well be true, but I don't think the outcome at Hostomel tells you much one way or the other about troop quality.  The best airborne troops in the world are not going to fare well when they're transported that deep into enemy territory.

[Josquius]

In fairness I think it is a little hard to say NATO is a truly defensive alliance. Sure, the formal mechanism of getting all the members to join a war through article 5 requires a defensive arrangement, but NATO has been a vehicle to conduct several offensive wars. For example, NATO bombed Yugoslavia(Serbia) in 1999 as part of the Kosovo War, when there was no real self-defense argument for it. Now, I think it's also obvious that Russia is no Serbia, and knows that NATO would not ever conduct such an operation against it.

You didn't really need NATO for that though. It was just the NATO nations did it just as they could jump in the Ukraine war if they wanted.